US warships in the Taiwan Strait are a part of a “pattern of gradual acceleration and escalation of the threats to China,” American writer and academic James Petras says. On Monday, two US warships sailed through the Taiwan Strait, according to an American military spokesman, amid heightened tensions with China. The USS Curtis Wilbur and USS Antietam carried out a routine transit to prove US commitment “to a free and open Indo-Pacific,” Colonel Rob Manning told reporters at the Pentagon in Washington, DC.